Posts published in Day: December 6, 2018

France will deploy 65,000 security personnel on Saturday for more protests from the ‘gilets jaunes’ (‘yellow vest’) movement. Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told French senators on Thursday that ‘exceptional measures’ were being put in place for the demonstrations. France has been rocked by consecutive weekends of demonstrations from the ‘gilets jaunes’ protesters. The movement began online over moves to raise a fuel tax but have since snowballed into anger over…

Denmark is important Latvia’s partner in defense and regional security, said Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis during the official visit of Danish Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary to Latvia. As the President’s Chancellery reported, Denmark played a significant role, providing support to the restored Latvia in the early 1990s. Therefore the official visit of Their Royal Highnesses Crown Prince and Crown Princess of Denmark is a special events. The…

O2 has revealed that one of its third party suppliers had a software issue that caused the outage. O2 is experiencing problems as the network has gone down across the UK. Customers reported experiencing problems with 4G and data services leaving them unable to access the internet. The network issues appeared to start shortly after 5.30am this morning. Outages were reported across the UK, including Manchester, London and Southampton. The…

The National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine has announced that it successfully tested a land-based cruise missile and upgraded S-125 missile system on 5 December. According to statement, the tests of Ukrainian missiles proved that Ukraine is capable of defending its borders in the Black and Azov Seas. This was stated by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov upon completion of the tests at…

The Estonian Centre for Defence Investment (Riigi Kaitseinvesteeringute Keskus) has announced that the U.S. arms company Lewis Machine & Tool (LMT) became the winner of the contest for a contract to supply automatic assault rifles. According to a statement, announced on 4 December, at the proposal of the Tender Committee, Col. Rauno Sirk, director of the Estonian Centre for Defence Investments (ECDI), declared the offer submitted by LMT the most successful tender…

Maj. Gen. Martin Herem, who took over as Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces (EDF) this week, is in favour of extending the length of conscription service for some fields in order to increase the EDF’s combat power. Herem, who took over the position from Gen. Riho Terras, likewise finds that women’s conscription should remain voluntary, and young men should consider the completion of military service beneficial for themselves and…

According to the results of a risk analysis drawn up by the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA), the situation in Estonia would reach emergency proportions if 3,000 or more foreigners arrived in the country in groups of dozens of people. According to the PPA, an influx at such a scale could cause issues in the continuity of emergency care as a vital service. In such a situation, PPA employees’…

In 2017, households in the European Union (EU) spent 12.2 % of their total consumption expenditure on ‘food and non-alcoholic beverages’, informed Eurostat. This is the third most important category of household expenditure after ‘housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels’, which accounted for 24.2% of household expenditure, and ‘transport’, which accounted for 13.0% The Member States with more than 20% of their total household consumption expenditure attributed to food and…

Foreign minister Sven Mikser (SDE) was at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, focussing on moving forward the alliance’s relationship with the Western Balkan nations and looking at opportunities in support of Afghanistan. Sven Mikser stated the representatives reaffirmed NATO’s commitment to its open door policy. “Macedonia and Greece have demonstrated good will in trying to solve the Macedonia name dispute,” said Mr Mikser, referring to…

The Estonian Defence Forces (EDF) have declined to comment on media speculation that the missile fired in error by a Spanish fighter pilot in NATO service resulted from an interception of a French Mirage 2000-5, also in NATO service. Whilst an internal Spanish Airforce investigation after the 7 August incident reportedly concluded pilot error was to blame, a minimal penalty (alternatively 14 days’ detention or a week’s wages’ fine) was…